Exeter area's top stories of 2013

EXETER — For the second straight year the hepatitis C crisis at Exeter Hospital is the year's top Exeter area story, but for different reasons than in 2012.

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By Aaron Sanborn

seacoastonline.com

By Aaron Sanborn

Posted Dec. 31, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By Aaron Sanborn

Posted Dec. 31, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

EXETER — For the second straight year the hepatitis C crisis at Exeter Hospital is the year's top Exeter area story, but for different reasons than in 2012.

At this time last year the crisis was still very active with many unanswered questions. While there will likely always be unanswered questions about the crisis, this year brought to a close a major chapter in the case.

On Dec. 2 the man responsible for the crisis, David Kwiatkowski, was sentenced to 39 years in federal prison. Kwiatkowski pleaded guilty in August to 14 federal charges for stealing painkiller medication from syringes intended for patients in Exeter Hospital's cardiac catheterization laboratory, then giving the patients saline solution in the syringes he had infected with hepatitis C.

Kwiatkowski infected 46 patients in four states — including 32 patients at Exeter Hospital — with hepatitis C.

The sentencing of Kwiatkowski was significant not only because of the punishment being handed down but because the sentencing hearing allowed the opportunity for Kwiatkowski's victims to confront him.

These victims were no longer just numbers, they had names, faces and a voice. Victim after victim told heartbreaking stories about how Kwiatkowski's actions negatively impacted their lives.

One such story came from Paul Levine, a U.S. Army veteran, who contracted hepatitis C from Kwiatkowski at Exeter Hospital.

Levine recalled an incident where a cut he suffered earlier in the day started bleeding while on a trip to a grocery store.

He was walking down an aisle with his wife and before he knew it, "there was a puddle of blood" on the floor.

He quietly told a worker he had been infected with hepatitis C at Exeter Hospital and the worker yelled out, "Don't go down the potato aisle, it's contaminated with hep C."

Linwood Nelson, a 92-year-old from Baltimore, Md., who was infected at Johns Hopkins Hospital by Kwiatkowski, told the court he served in Vietnam without being injured, only to contract hepatitis C at the hospital, he said, "not knowing it was going to be friendly fire that injured me."

Then his son, Linwood Nelson Jr., broke down and cried when he talked about how his father wouldn't hug his daughter anymore because he feared infecting her.

"My dad can barely make it a month now without being hospitalized," Nelson Jr. said.

Linda Thompson, whose husband contracted the disease while being treated at Exeter Hospital, said he was too sick to appear in court to face Kwiatkowski.

She told the court her husband now distrusts "the medical field," and she told Kwiatkowski he had "made sick people sicker" by choosing to steal their painkillers to fuel his addiction.

Those stories are only a sample of the victim testimony from that day.

Kwiatkowski, 34, was also given an opportunity to speak during the hearing

"I hate myself," Kwiatkowski said, while blaming his actions on being addicted to alcohol and opiates. "I listened to you guys and I'm truly sorry for what I have done."

The judge read the names of all 45 of Kwiatkowski's victims during the hearing, including the late Eleanor Murphy from Kansas.

Even though Kwiatkowski is behind bars, the fallout from the crisis is not going away anytime soon.

Hospitals and health care professionals across the state and country are looking at ways to tighten their own procedures, and considering possible legislation, to prevent future incidents of drug diversion.

Kwiatkowski's case showed numerous flaws in the system. As a traveling technician, medical staffing agencies placed Kwiatkowski at hospitals across the county on a temporary basis. Somehow, Kwiatkowski was terminated from multiple hospitals for suspected controlled drug use, but was still hired at hospitals in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Arizona, Kansas and Georgia

New Hampshire U.S. Attorney John Kacavas, who help prosecute Kwiatkowski, said that he intends to lead the effort to craft new regulations that will protect the public.

"While the conclusion of this prosecution closes the criminal aspect of this case, it has cast a harsh light on the dirty little secret of drug diversion in the medical setting and it has heightened public awareness for the need for tighter reform and regulation in the hiring and management of medical health care workers," Kacavas said following Kwiatkowski's sentencing.

There are also a number of civil cases still pending against Exeter Hospital and the staffing agencies that placed Kwiatkowski, even though there are also many being settled.

Of the civil cases still going to trial, the first cases are scheduled to go to trial in November and December 2014.

In addition, Exeter Hospital recently sued Kwiatkowski and the staffing agencies that placed him in an attempt to recoup some of the money it's doling out in settlements connected to civil cases. This case is also expected to carry over into the new year.